Finally got around to having a decent session with the Victory CP2, here are my initial thoughts …

I first saw the Shooting mag adverts for the CP2 last year and I liked the look of it immediately, especially the camo version. I already had a springer, a PCP and a gas ram, so the obvious next step in my collection was to get a CO2 gun.
So I thought about it for a few months, then I bit the bullet and bought one, (in 0.177 flavour).

Once I got it home I opened the sturdy box and was greeted with a nice padded interior which holds everything nicely in place. Although the gun is now permanently assembled and no longer fits in the original box, I shall be keeping the box in case I ever sell this gun, as it will maintain its originality.

I have no current interest in pistols, but obviously the CP2 can be set-up and used as a pistol, so I have that option in the future if I want it, but at this stage I am only interested in using it as a carbine rifle. So, I assembled it as a rifle as per the included instructions.

Assembly was a piece of cake, easy peesy, no probs at all. Remove pistol barrel, add carbine butt, add rifle (longer) barrel, add moderator, tighten everything up, job done. I reckon it took about 5 minutes to put it all together initially, but I was of course carefully looking at every part, etc, so I was taking my time, now I have done it a couple of times, it takes about a minute, maybe two to take it all apart or to convert it from pistol to rifle, or vice versa.

This gun is of course an SMK, an evolution of the CP1, (I think) and the build quality is surprisingly good. It feels very sturdy and well built. I previously owned an old SMK rifle (DB4 I think it was?) for many years, and it was obviously a very cheap rifle and in use it felt cheap too. Hence the surprise at the quality feel of the CP2.
Side Note, I also own an Air Arms and a Weihrauch, so I do know what a quality gun feels like!

Spec: Bolt action co2 powered (small 12g cartridges). Its 86cm long in carbine form and it weighs just under a kilo or two pounds, with no accessories. ½” UNF thread for moderators.
Power outputs is apparently 5.5ftlbs in pistol form with the shorter barrel and around 8 to 9ftlbs in the longer carbine format with the longer barrel.

What do you get for your money, it comes with a nice padded box, instructions, two multi shot mags, one single shot tray loader, moderator, rifle butt, (carbine) and two barrels, (shorter pistol and longer carbine). You also get some spare “o” rings.

I have since added an elasticated shotgun cartridge holder, which is handy for storing spare co2 cartridges, it will hold up to five, and it slips over the butt section and stays there quite nicely.

I initially bought a Hawke Red Dot “Sport” scope for this, but I did not realise it only puts the red dot in the scope glass, not on the actual target, which is what I really wanted, eg: a proper red dot laser scope, which this is not! So I did not fit it. I have now added a Hawke Panarama 2-7x32IR scope. I initially had a larger Hawke scope (a spare 3-9x50) which was way too big for this gun, I then bought a BSA 2-7x40 scope, and although it fitted the gun ok, it still looked too big, so I finally settled on the 32mm and it suits it fine.

Camo: the main action, pistol grip and carbine butt section all come with light brown and beige type camo coating, (not sure of the exact pattern?). These look to be good quality material, (some sort of hard synthetic plastic with a nice “feel”) that will be weather resistant, easy to clean, hard wearing and seem to be well made and well fitted. In particular, the join between the pistol grip and the carbine butt is a very satisfying tight fit, with no large gap once its been tightened up.

Magazines. The two supplied multi shot mags (9 shots for 0.177) were a mystery to me initially, sas I could not figure out how to load the pellets or fit the mag to the gun, (unfortunately the instructions were useless in helping!) however, a couple of forum posts and you tube clips later and all was revealed. You have to wind back the spring mechanism, load the first pellet upside down and the wrong way round, then load the other pellets as you rewind the mag cover, sounds complicated, but once you get the hang of it, its relatively easy. Works ok but is a bit fiddly.

I have mostly been using the excellent single shot loader tray, which works great. Mags are held in place by a small but very effective magnet to the base of the mag, which then sticks to a small metal piece in the mag slot. It has not slipped out once whilst using it, so it works fine.

The CP2 comes with, what feels like, an adjustable two stage trigger, (I have not actually checked this yet tho). It’s a nice sturdy metal trigger. I have not tampered with it, and it seems to work fine.

There is a built in safety button mounted on the trigger itself, I don’t like these, but it’s a personal thing. It is well made and functions fine, but I don’t like a safety on a trigger as there is a possibility of an accidental firing whilst trying to operate the safety. I prefer a safety to be mounted off the trigger, but that is just my preference.

Charging: as this is a co2 gun, it requires co2 cartridges. There is a large nut/cap at the forend of the action, under the main barrel, that undoes to allow a cartridge to be inserted into the tube, the nut/cap is then done up which pushes the cartridge down the tube and pierces the cartridge to charge the gun. Included in the large nut / cap is a smaller bolt that unscrews and can then to be used as a lever to tighten the larger nut/cap. That is such a nice little feature and well thought out.

Removing the co2 cartridges is the reverse of the above. I have had no problems inserting or removing cartidges.
Once inserted into the gun, there is also a little side window on the co2 cartridge tube, which allows you to see that the cartridge is correctly positioned, again, it’s a small thing, but a very useful feature.

No’ of shots per fill. So far I reckon I get about 45 shots per co2 cartridge, without significant change in POI, eg: pressure loss.
The instructions say its about 40. The first couple of shots seem to be a bit inconsistent, maybe this is just while the cartridge sorts itself out? But I may do some more testing on this at a later date.

Scope: I opted for a Hawke Panarama 3-7x32IR (see above). I think I am using BSA scope mounts? (can’t remember, I have swapped scopes on this gun so many times!)

Pellets: So far I have only tried it with H&N FTT and it seems to like those ok.

Feel: It feels quite light, especially compared to my HW97, but then again, everything feels light compared to that! But it also feels sturdy and well built. The carbine butt is a little low for me, so I have to adjust my head, and my cheek does not actually touch the butt, but I s’pose I’ll get used to it, or buy some sort of cheek piece / riser?

Accuracy: Getting nice groups about the size of a two pence bit on a consistent basis, but I have only shot this at 10m and 15m so far, so not tested to anything further yet.

Bolt action: again, surprisingly, it feels ok to me, not cheap, it is a well built metal bolt that operates smoothly and effectively, not the best in the World, of course, but certainly not the worse either.
There is a very small Weaver rail at the very front of the forestock, so accessories can be added.
The gun does come with front and rear adjustable open sights. I took off the rear sight to accommodate the scope slightly easier.

Negatives: The only thing I can see as a negative for this gun, at this price, is that there are three small grub screws that tighten the barrel onto the action, and once you have a scope mounted, it is directly above those screws, so you then cannot get to those screws, so to check the tightness you would have to 1st remove the scope, so a minor gripe there. Oh, and the fiddly mags….

So there you go, me and the Victory CP2. A nice little garden plinker.